Capillary entrapment due to small-scale wettability heterogeneities

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:199498

Lingen, P.P. van; Bruining, J

Small-scale heterogeneities are abundantly present in oil reservoirs. It is well known that these heterogeneities can reduce the displacement efficiency of water flooding due to capillary entrapment of oil. A typical heterogeneous facies is the laminated cross-bed set with alternating high and low permeable laminae. Apart from this heterogeneity in grain-size, the wettability of the laminae can also differ. The laminae can contain different minerals with different wetting characteristics, and wettability can be affected by adsorption of hydrocarbons to the grain surface. In this paper we focus on the effects of wettability on the entrapment. We measured capillary pressure curves for porous media with various wetting characteristics. We describe a procedure which allows the reader to quantify the trapped oil saturation depending on absolute permeability, relative permeability and capillary pressure curves of the foreset laminae, based on a simplified cross-bed geometry. The example calculations show the sensitivity of various parameters with respect to the magnitude of trapping.

• OSTI ID: 199498
• Report Number(s): CONF-951002--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
ENHANCED RECOVERY
FLUID FLOW
HETEROGENEOUS EFFECTS
OIL FIELDS
OIL SATURATION
OIL WELLS
PETROLEUM
RESERVOIR ROCK
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
WATERFLOODING